Allen unsure if Philyor will return this season

Injuries have plagued the Indiana receiver’s sophomore campaign, limiting his availability throughout the second half of the year.

Whether he plays again this season is not clear.

IU coach Tom Allen said Monday that he was unsure whether Philyor will be back on the field after recently undergoing an unspecified medical procedure. Last week, Philyor posted a picture to Instagram showing himself in a hospital bed. Allen on Monday said that the Indiana playmaker recently required a procedure to “have some things cleaned up a little bit.”

Philyor missed his third game of the season on Saturday against Maryland.

“He had some things done, and we’ll see how that plays out,” Allen said. “We’re trying to get him back, but he’s had a rough one. Just seems like he’s had a hard time getting healthy, and when he gets back, he’s been dinged.”

Philyor, one of IU’s best athletes, seemingly hasn’t been himself since suffering a high-ankle sprain against Michigan State on Sept. 22. That was a career night for Philyor, who caught 13 passes for 148 yards with a touchdown against the Spartans. He missed IU’s next two games and has only five catches for 41 yards since the Michigan State game as he’s dealt with the nagging effects of the ankle injury.

Allen said Philyor recently suffered a separate injury that required the extra medical attention. Allen did not specify the nature of that injury.

“We’re trying to deal with that,” Allen said. “So it’s kind of been a couple things. So just the way it goes sometimes. … But I feel for him, because he’s worked his tail off and had a great off-season, ready to grow, and just had one thing after the next. So we’re just trying to battle to get him back.”

My thoughts exactly, think! And you especially can’t run those over-the-middle dink-passes with a guy the size of Philyor when you’ve yet to establish a deep-passing threat. You want to run dink and dunk passing plays, use running backs, tight ends or guys with the size to take hits from linebackers. I thought Philyor was a burner who could outrun or at least out-quick defensive backs?

Hope he makes a full recovery and returns when he’s completely healed.

Whop is just a very exciting player. From the jet sweeps to the pass routes, he is capable of breaking loose for the score. He seems to have a joy in playing that is infectious. I can’t say that I give any credence to the couch “injury doctors” pontifical opinions. Injuries happen in every offense. Produce 5-10 years of data in support of your theory or admit it is just words. Come back strong Whop, we love you!

BP,
Anytime you send a receiver across the middle or any other variety of a short route you open them up for a big hit. It is just the nature of the game, and sometimes those hits are not administered by DBs but LBs. Big difference in the force of hit. The problem is not the inherent nature of the game especially on such receiver routes.

The problem is when the defense does not have to guess about whether you are going deep or not. When there is no fear of the ball going behind the defense they are free to cheat up close to the line, and tee off on the receiver the moment the ball gets there. Sometimes they do so even before the ball gets there, it gets flagged, but the receiver still has to absorb the hit. The idea is to keep the defense guessing so when the dink or dunk pass is employed the defense may have not already anticipated the pass and cannot unload a heavy hit on your receiver.

Your final problem is if all you do is run the dink and dunk you have increased the number of these hits. This cumulative effect of these hits over a season wears the body down substantially.

That’s why I’ve never understood Wilson and now Allen running up tempo offenses. Guys get hurt during live action. In other words, they get hurt during plays. Up tempo offenses run more plays. More plays always equals more injuries. Teams like Ohio State going tempo makes sense because it gives more opportunities for their superior talent to win out. But teams like IU need to shorten games and save their limited resources.

Please give the data to support the “wordy”assertions. All sports now heavily utilize metrics. Somewhere the data is there to track these assertions. But I have never seen such data. Every football team throws short over the middle (which are the only throws you are talking about). So show me the data!

BP, this is not a science lab, it’s an opinion site. And you don’t need data to tell you that running undersized receivers on short routes over the middle exposes them to more big hits, and that more big hits equates to a higher risk of injury. It’s just a matter of common sense and observation. Guys like Philyor need to operate is space where their speed and quickness gives them an advantage over defenders. Look at how Purdue uses their freshman phenom on offense. You don’t see him getting crushed by linebackers after running a five-yard route over the middle. They give him the ball when he’s in space and can make defenders miss.

It’s a product of dunk and dink…It’s also a product of not enough zing on a ball even when running a dunk and dink offense. Defensive safeties and corners can ready a brutal hit for a weaker short pass. Short game is fine ….if a qb can offer some bullets instead of nerf gun offerings.

Injuries are also a product of 2 and 3 star talent playing in a division with many 4 and 5 star opponents. You’re putting Leon Spinks against George Foreman ….But Leon doesn’t have the skills of Muhammad and he doesn’t think to ‘rope-a-dope.’ He just keeps getting pounded …round after round after round. No surprise that ends with a trip to the hospital.

Personally, I don’t even think Ramsey’s arm is that great for dunk and dink. Just not enough juice on a pass. It’s a lot of work for any receiver to get separation(even in the 10-15 yard stuff). You need a qb with a super-quicl/strong release and enough heat on a ball to take advantage of the ever-narrowing windows of opportunity as speed and talent in pass defenders continues to increase across the board.
Dunk and dink without downfield potential to ‘keep ’em honest’ is bad enough…But when the competition/speed/star talent in your opponents increases, a weak arm makes the dunk and dink even less effective. Windows of opportunities to your short game receivers close even faster. An accurate strong arm is imperative as college football fills rosters with faster and more explosive talent.

H4H, well stated about the difference between Ramsey and Penix. I think coaches were going to switch QBs after the PSU game when they saw the difference in the defense of PSU until Penix got injured. Penix was throwing deep passes that Ramsey hadn’t been doing and coach Allen could see the difference in defense that helped the running game because the defense backed off after seeing how strong Penix’s arm was.

thinkabout it, you are right about the danger of throwing short crossing routes without the defense knowing they couldn’t be beaten downfield by a pass. People want to blame the coaches but it was Ramsey unwilling to throw deep passes trying to play it safe, it could have been play calling but with Penix against PSU it doesn’t see like it is play calling. I am glad Ramsey has found out putting the ball in the right place and throwing it soon enough he can throw deeper passes.

It took Penix in the PSU game to show Ramsey throwing deep passes is a good thing but until coach Allen started getting after throwing deep balls he didn’t throw them. Ramsey is a good kid and works hard at playing QB but his arm isn’t strong enough to be really good against best. His passes to the short receivers get there slow and it allows DBs to break quick enough to hit the receivers at the catch or break up the passes with knock aways or ints. It isn’t about bias but seeing the difference between the two QBs that many of us see. I appreciate all Ramsey has done but talent plays a big part at every position.

Hey PB- I was a tight end many years ago. They would send me out wide and I would run short slants back to the middle. Waiting for the ball knowing you were about to get popped by a charging linebacker was enough to send me back to offensive line. The little db’s never hit that hard because they lacked the mass. But linebackers? Not fun. Anecdotal yes but I guarantee no receiver wants to take a hit from a linebacker with a running start. There’s old receivers and bold receivers but no old and bold receivers….

In this case, it’s not about Ramsey vs some other QB. It’s about the OC’s reluctance to call plays involving deep passing routes and becoming too dependent on dink and dunk passes to move the chains. Now, Ramsey’s limitations may influence those tendencies, but he threw two really nice deep balls against Maryland, so it makes one wonder “where have those deep passes been all season?” Against MSU, their defensive line probably inhibited calling those pass plays more than the one instance. But aside from that one game, why not allow Ramsey to air it out more often? We either have the receivers or we don’t? If we do, don’t waste them on 5-yard dink routes.

Po, after the PSU game I believe it is Ramsey that was doing the dink and dunk because in the PSU running the same plays when Ramsey was dinking and dunking Penix came in and started through to the deeper routes. After Ramsey went back in that stopped and coach Allen had to keep screaming about throwing to our WR to make it happen. We have always had WR running deep but the ball wasn’t thrown to them until Penix went in. Too many think coaches determine where passes go but that isn’t true.